Further thoughts on the cultural labor of poetry and art. Not merely "is it good?," but "what has it accomplished?"...reviews of recent poetry collections; selected poems and art dealing with war/peace/social change; reviews of poetry readings; links to political commentary (particularly on conflicts in the Middle East); youtubed performances of music, demos, and other audio-video nuggets dealing with peaceful change, dissent and resistance.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Bob Perelman's "Shock and Awe" and Dick Cheney's Mind/"Wichita Vortex Sutra" for the 21st century

I've been a fan of Bob Perelman's poetry for about a decade, ever since Mike Magee introduced me to the work of his mentor at UPenn. Perelman is one of those rare poets whose crossover appeal has three dimensions--he's a witty experimental writer who is bawdy and grounded, he's a lyrical dynamo with intellectual rigor, and he's a fine, plainspoken critic who doesn't need to impress with theoretically-leaden prose. Perelman's poem, "Against Shock and Awe," written in 2003, hearkens back to Allen Ginsberg's great Vietnam War poem, "Wichita Vortex Sutra." Although it doesn't have the fragmented oral quality of Ginsberg's epic, Perelman's "Against Shock and Awe" situates its meditation on the war through imagining Cheney's "Wyoming," as Ginsberg does with "Wichita." Perelman had this poem published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as on counterpunch--demonstrating the crucial need for a kind of public role for poetry, and to resist war.

"Against Shock and Awe" by Bob Perelman

For Kerry Sherin

We may not have chosen to live inside Dick Cheney's mind, but wedo.

Wyoming, I read somewhere, is the safest place in North America.

No tornados, no tsunamis, no earthquakes, no monsoons, orfloods. No major airport: no big planes crashing in the sleet.

But if living in Wyoming is so safe, living inside Dick Cheney's mind,though it was formed there, is not safe at all.

Love comes before life, and since newborns don't survive on theirown, life at the beginning involves giving. It has to: breast milk,protection, language, diapers made out of whatever, some sort ofattention before you crawl or walk. Everyone living was givensome of that somehow.

That gets us up to Give. Gave comes next because giving is tiring.You give and give and what thanks do you get? Nothing. Orworse. They think they're entitled; they're madder than ever; theysulk in their rooms, they throw rocks.

So much for giving. The next logical step is to build a gate.

But gates creak at night, they leak, they break, in fact, gatesconcentrate whatever's on either side, they distill hate.

Love, Live, Give, Gave, Gate, Hate: Q.E.D.

But getting from Wyoming to Shock and Awe?

"Shock and Awe"? That's the Pentagon's current battle plan forIraq: 300 to 400 cruise missiles the first day (more than in all ofDesert Storm), 300 to 400 the next, to demolish water, electricity,communications, buildings, roads, bridges, infrastructure ingeneral. "The sheer size of this has never been seen before," aPentagon official told CBS. "There will not be a safe place inBaghdad." Harlan Ullman drew a parallel to Hiroshima: the Iraqipeople will be "physically, emotionally and psychologicallyexhausted"; it will be "like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, nottaking days or weeks but minutes." The point is "to imposeoverwhelming level of Shock and Awe, to seize control of theenvironment and paralyze or so overload an adversary'sperceptions and understanding of events that the enemy wouldbe incapable of resistance."

This is Shock and Awe, remember, not Wyoming.

But it gets hard to tell them apart: overwhelming levels seizingcontrol, paralyzing perceptions and understanding.

That works for Wyoming and just about anywhere in the UnitedStates.

That's the problem with living inside Dick Cheney's mind, whetherwe've chosen to or not.

Rationale: Since the Iraqi people are enslaved inside SaddamHussein's mind, that mind must be destroyed. That meansdestroying Saddam Hussein's body, which means brushing asideBaghdad to find him to free the Iraqi people trapped inside hismind.

But dead people are free only in the most limited way. Not muchbang for the buck there.

Deeper rationale: It's an adult world. Shock and Awe is adultpolitical theater for a world audience. To reach an audience thatbig you have to project. That's the point of Shock, the sheer sizeof which has never, etc. Otherwise the audience won't be struckwith Awe.

What's the point of Awe?

Awe kills two birds with one stone. For the right Arabs, itinaugurates democracy, or something, somehow. For the wrongArabs, Awe will . . . what? Awe will awe them into submission.

I can hear Dick Cheney arguing that Awe worked at Hiroshima.

But Japan was at war with us, and Awe, or at least InstantSubmission, didn't work outside Japan. The Iraqi people are notonly not at war with us, we're rescuing them from SaddamHussein's mind. And as for working outside Baghdad? Destroyingit will awe al-Qaeda? That's a stretch. There are more al-Qaedansin London or Berlin than in Baghdad. Maybe we should get Berlinfirst.

No matter how big you make Shock, you can't get to Awe.

Forget it: We'll never know the exact route from Wyoming toShock and Awe.

But even half a mind is enough to do the math: We're half capableof resistance.

The shocks are gigantic, disgusting, but at least they're notshocking, once we give up our imaginary safety.

The other half, Awe with its ersatz religious capital letter, we canresist.

The weapons are huge and thoughtless, but they don't deserve a shred of awe.

A small victory, but it's one weapon destroyed, the one theyalways use first.

Bob Perelman is a poet and a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. The Shock and Awe language comes from Web sites found on Google under "Shock and Awe." He can be reached at: perelman@english.upenn.edu

abu ghraib arias

To See the Earth

Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront

About Me

Poetry books and chapbooks include *Pictures at an Exhibition*, *Sand Opera*, *A Concordance of Leaves*, *abu ghraib arias,* *To See the Earth,* *Instants,* *Primer for Non-Native Speakers,* *Compleat Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Poems of Lev Rubinstein,* and A Kindred Orphanhood: Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky*. Scholarship: *Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront Since 1941.*